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MEMORIALS 



Andrew Kirkpatrick. 



AND HIS WIFE 



JANE BAYARD. 



fir 



JAMES GKANT WILSON. 



Those who do not treasure up the memorj' of their ancestors do not deserve 
to be remembered by posterity;— Edmxind Burke: 





G^^IvT^n^'i^- 



PRiVAfELY PRINTED FOR MRS. DR. UOW. 
NEW YORK: 1870. 



THE LIFE AND CHARACTER 



a:^deew kirkpatrick, 



CHIEF JUSTICE OP THE STATE OP NEW JERSEY. 



A portion of the following sketch of the life and 
character of Chief-Justice Kirkpateick was read be- 
fore the New- Jersey Historical Society, May 19, 1870. 
It is now given to the press, together with a brief 
biography of his wife, Jane Bayard, and a list of their 
descendants, to be printed, not published, by request 
of their only surviving child, Mrs. Mary Kirkpatrick 
How. The portrait of the Chief Justice is copied from 
an original painting by Waldo, 

J. G. W. 

Fifteen Kirkpatrick Place, 
East Seventy-fourth Street, New York, 
September, 1870. 



Andrew Kirkpatrick, a jurist aud judge, of New 
Jersey, wliose name will always be conspicuous in the 
annals of his native State, was descended from Scot- 
tish ancestors, who, notwithstanding the fiict that they 
were strict Presbyterians, were, nevertheless, actively, 
engaged, under the Earl of Mar, in the rebellion of 
1715, in favor of Prince Francis Edward, the Elder 
Pretender to the throne of Great Britain. They after- 
ward availed themselves of the clemency of the gov- 
ernment, which was satisfied with exacting no higher 
penalty at that time than expatriation, a penalty, how- 
ever, felt perhaps more keenly by the Scotch, with 
their never-dying love for their native land, than it 
would have been by the people of other countries. 
The grandfather of Judge Kirkpatrick, accompanied 



by his family, turned his back sorrowfully upon bonny 
Scotland, singing, as lie departed, Allan Ramsay's sad 
farewell song of — 

" Lochaber no more, Lochaber no more, 
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more ; " 

and migrated to Belfast, Ireland, where they remained 
for a few years, and then, in the spring of 1736, sailed 
for America. After a stormy voyage of thirteen weeks, 
the vessel reached New Castle, Delaware, the passen- 
gers and crew being almost starved, by reason of tbe 
unexpected length of the passage. David, the son of 
Alexander, who was then twelve years of age, speak- 
ing of this to a grandson in after-years, said : " The 
first thing I ate after we got on shore was corn, in the 
state which we call roasting-ears, and without roasting 
or boiling I ate it till the milk of the corn ran down 
both sides of my mouth, and I have never eaten any 
thing since that tasted sweeter." 

The Kirkpatricks crossed the Delaware at Phila- 
del23hia, and wandered up through the State of New 
Jersey, which was partially settled, till they reached 
Bound Brook, and from there they went over the moun- 
tain. Coming to a spring of water, at what has since 
been called " Mine Brook," they halted, built a log- 
house, and began the business of farming. The spot 



was well chosen, about two miles west of tlie present 
site of Basking Kidge, in Somerset County. It em- 
braced tlie southern slope of Round Mountain, in a 
well- wooded region, with unfailing springs of pure 
water ; rich meadow-land, through which Mine Brook 
ran, with a sufficient fall of water for a mill-seat ; and, 
with these material advantages, a most charming and 
picturesque view of the adjacent country. The mate- 
rial advantages and lovely prospects, however, had 
less influence with the decision of Alexander Kirkpat- 
rick to settle where he did, than the circumstance of 
its proximity to a minister who preached the Word of 
Truth to his perfect satisfoction. He thought less of 
his daily food than he did of good preaching and ex- 
position of the Scripture, as set forth by the Rev. 
Mr. Lamb, in the old log-church erected by a small 
band of Scotch Presbyterians, who settled at Bask- 
ing Ridge early in the eighteenth century. Alex- 
ander Kirkpatrick died in 1758, having lived under 
seven difl:erent reigns of Great Britain (Charles II. ; 
James II. ; William and Maiy ; William ; Anne ; 
George I. ; and George II.). The spring of water 
is still there, marking the site of the original log- 
house, and, until within a few years, could be seen 
the remains of apple-trees, planted by Alexander Kirk- 
patrick and his three sons. This improvement many 



10 

of tlie early proprietary leases required. In a lease 
of one hundred and thirty-seven acres (whicli was but 
a minor portion of what the family eventually ob- 
tained by title in fee simple), granted November 23, 
1747, to Alexander Kirkpatrick, he agrees "to plant 
an orchard of at least one apple-tree for every tkree 
acres, and in case this lease shall continue beyond 
three years, then (to) plant one apple-tree for every six 
acres, all regular in an orchard, and to keep up tlie 
number planted, and to keep the orchard in good 
fence." 

David, tke second son of Alexander, was born in 
Dumfriesshire, February 17, 1724, and married Mary 
McEwen, a native of Argyleshire, who, witb ker fam- 
ily, crossed tke Atlantic in the ship in wkich the Kirk- 
patricks took passage. One of her descendants, still 
living, remembers seeing her a few weeks before her 
death, which took place at Mine Brook, November 2, 
1795, and also remembers how tenderly David, during 
his annual visits to her father, the chief justice, would 
take her on his knee and say, in his broad Scotch, 
" My pretty Mary, my pretty Mary, may you but fill 
your station in life as well as your grandmother, for 
whom you were named, did hers ; " and would sing to 
her and her sisters Francis Sempill's sweet Scottish 
song of " Maggie Lauder." 



11 

Her husband's elder brotlier, Andrew, inherited the 
homestead, but, soon after the death of their father, 
sold it to David, and removed to what was then called 
" The Red Stone Country ; " in other words, to West- 
ern Pennsylvania, where his descendants still reside. 
David was a rigid Presbyterian, of the John Knox 
school, and described by those who knew him as 
strongly resembling another David — the David Deans 
of Scott's " Heart of Mid-Lothian." Plain and simple 
in his habits, of strict integrity and sterling common- 
sense, he was a man of great energy and self-reliance. 
We have an exponent of what he was in the fine, sub- 
stantial stone-house, which he built at Mine Brook 
one hundred and five years ago, with its thick, firm 
walls, laid in mortar almost as hard now as the gray 
sandstone itself, and with floors made of white-oak 
inch-plank, laid double. The old stone-work and the 
old painting look nearly as fresh as on the addition 
recently built by the present occupant. With proper 
care, the house might be made to last many centuries. 
On a stone over the front door (but now concealed by 
a new portico) are chiselled "D. M. K., 1765," the 
three initial letters standing for David and Mary 
Kirkpatrick. 

The father of Judge Kirkpatrick lived to attain his 
ninety -first year ; educated, with a view to his entering 



12 

the ministry, one son at the College of New Jersey ; 
knew of at least six grandsons who were liberally edu- 
cated, and at liis death, in 1814, left a numerous pos- 
terity to bless his memory. Although he lived two 
miles from the church at Basking Kidge, he preferred 
always to w^alk, while the family rode ; and when a 
member of the Legislature, although he would com- 
mence the journey on horseback, he soon dismounted, 
and, leading his horse, walked the remainder of the 
way to Trenton. In his last will, executed thirteen 
years before his death, he says : " I, David Kirkpat- 
rick, having arrived at a good old age, and being de- 
sirous of arranging and settling my worldly affairs, 
and directing how the property wherewith it hath 
pleased God to reward my labors should be disposed 
of after my death," etc., and concludes : " And now 
having disposed of all my worldly concerns, I hum- 
bly commit my immortal soul to God my Heavenly 
Father, in an humble hope that through the interces- 
sion of Jesus Christ, my Saviour and Redeemer, I shall 
be raised again at the last day in glory everlasting." ' 
Both as to the great concerns of eternity, and the 
things of time, he seems to have acted in the spirit of 
the short and comprehensive motto of the Kirkpat- 

' The Kirkpatrick Memorial. Philadelphia, 1867. 



13 

ricks, so well adapted to every situation and condi- 
tion of life, "/ mak sicher'''' — I make sure. He was 
buried in a coffin made from the wood of a walnut- 
tree planted by liim in boyhood, and which he caused 
to be cut down a few years before his death, and kept 
for that purpose. Several tables were also made from 
it, which are still in the possession of his descendants, 
and on one of which this brief memorial was written. 
Andrew, the third son of David Kirkpatrick and 
Mary McEwen, was born at Mine Brook, February 17, 
1756, and spent his boyhood in the stone-house al- 
ready described. He received the best education the 
times afforded, graduating at the College of New Jer- 
se}^, at Princeton (an institution which has sent forth 
many illustrious men, including his friends and con- 
temporaries, James Madison, Richard Stockton, and 
John Henry Hobart), in 1775, while the celebrated 
Dr. Witherspoon, one of the signers of the Declaration 
of Independence, was its president. There were in 
those early days no railroads, nor steamboats, nor even 
stage-coaches, to carry young men to college; and 
young Kirkpatrick, like the majority of the students, 
walked to and fro, between Mine Brook and Prince- 
ton, carrying his home-made and home-spun clothing 
in a small knapsack. The early college records are 
not in existence, having been destroyed by tire, but 



14 

we cannot doubt tliat Andrew Kirkpatrick graduated 
witk honor, if not, indeed, with distinction. His only- 
surviving child has no recollection of his having ever 
in the family circle referred to his college standing, 
and the only allusions to his college-days that I have 
seen are contained in Prof. Geyer's History of the 
Cliosophic Society. He says : " Andrew Kirkpatrick, 
of the class of 1775, a student in the office of William 
Patterson, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court 
of New Jersey, then Chief Justice for twenty-one years, 
the heau-idealoi a minister of justice, whose name will 
always be conspicuous in the juridical annals of his 
State, in 1825 gives this testimony : ' Few things could 
give me greater gratification than to be present with 
you, and to see the Society in a flourishing condition 
after the lapse of fifty years from the time I left it. 
The recollection of the happy hours I have spent in 
the Cliosophic Hall, and of the early friendships there 
formed, the recollection too of the first spring it gave 
to my feeble powers in the pui'suit of literature and 
science, and of the prospects it opened — the hopes it 
inspired for future life — are, indeed, lihe the memory 
of joys that are past, soothing and melancholy to the 
soul. 

" ' When I look over the catalogue, I find that the 
members of that day are almost all consigned to the 



15 

silent tomb. Tlie friendships tlien formed, however, 
though swallowed up in death, are not extinct, but 
sealed for immortality. They soon went forth upon 
the stage of life, played their several parts — a few of 
them badly, most of them well, and some with great 
applause — and then passed away, and are gone for- 
ever. 

" ' In this retrospect — and it is a retrospect which I 
often delight to take — I liave traced the paths my 
fi'iends have trodden, and if I have attained to any one 
truth, it is this : that classical learning is the road to 
preeminence and distinction in all the liheral pursuits 
of life: " 

Returning to his birthplace after receiving his de- 
gree of Bachelor of Arts, in 1775, and having been 
educated with a special view to the ministry of the 
Scotch Presbyterian Church (his father designing him 
for the clerical profession), he commenced theological 
studies with the Rev. Samuel Kennedy, a celebrated 
Scotch divine, settled at Basking Ridge. Six months' 
study satisfied him that the ministry was not agreeable 
to his taste, and he determined to relinquish it for the 
law. Young Kii'kpatrick exhibited on this critical 
occasion an evidence of that determined spirit which 
was destined to carry him through more than ordinary 
difficulties, to the highest professional eminence. He 



16 

was informed that the step he contemplated could only 
be taken at the expense of his father's favor, and of the 
pecuniar}^ support which had been most liberally ex- 
tended to him. His resolution, however, had been de- 
liberately taken; and, notwithstanding thj veneration, 
not unmixed with awe, with which he had always 
been accustomed to regard the injunction of a parent, 
who appears to have united a real regard for the best 
interests of his son with great inflexibility of opinion 
and sternness of character, he hesitated not, on this 
important occasion, which involved the destinies of his 
life, to forfeit even his father's countenance and pro- 
tection, and to enter upon his favorite pursuit, relying 
for subsistence upon his own extraordinary and un- 
aided exertions. When he thus gave a death-blow to 
his father's hopes, and was, in consequence, driven 
from the parental roof absolutely penniless, he would 
have been in a sad dilemma, had it not been for a kind 
and loving mother's bounty, who presented him with 
all her little hoard of ready money — but a few pieces 
of gold — as she, with many tears, saw him — her hand- 
some son, and the pride of her heart — depart to carve 
out unaided his own career in the world. 

The usual resource of young men in such circum- 
stances presented itself to Andrew Kirkpatrick, then 
in his twenty-first year, and he became a tutor in the 



17 

Taliaferro family of Virginia; subsequently residing 
for a year as a tutor in a gentleman's household at 
Esopus, Ulster County, New York. From there lie 
proceeded to New Brunswick (the oldest town in the 
State), and obtained the position of classical instructor 
in the Iluto:ers Colleo;e Grammar-school. While thus 
occupied, as well as during the time he acted as a 
tutor, he pursued with diligence in his leisure hours 
the study of the law, and soon after abandoned the 
school and school-teaching to enter the office of Wil- 
liam Patterson, one of the first lawyers of his day. It 
was of this gentleman that Moses Guest, New Brunsr 
wick's earliest poet, and a friend of the subject of this 
paper, wrote July 4, 1791, on seeing the Governor in 
his barge, which was elegantly decorated with laurel 
and a variety of the most beautiful flowers, and rowed 
by twelve men, all dressed in white : 

" On Raritan's smooth, gliding streani we view, 
With pleasure view, the man whom we admire, 
On this auspicious day, with laurel crowned. 
How gracefully the honored barge moves on ! 
See Neptune's sons, all clad in white, 
Timing their oars to the melodious flutes. 

Not Cleopatra's celebrated barge, 

When she, full armed with each bewitching charm, 
A tyrant bound in the soft chains of love, 
More elegant or pleasing could appear; 



18 

Nor did contain a jewel of such worth. 
Not freighted with a proud, intriguing queen — 
She nobly bears New Jersey's favorite son, 
Onr guardian chief, our friend, a Pattekson." 

Completing his legal studies in the office of Judge 
Patterson, Andrew Kirkpatrick was admitted to the 
bar in 1785, where talents of a high order, aided by 
the energy of his character, and the most persevering 
industry, soon obtained for him a lucrative practice at 
Morristown, to which j^lace he removed from New 
Brunswick. While practising his profession in Mor- 
ristown, and residing with his sister, Mrs. Este, the 
young lawyer sustained a hea\^ loss in the destruction 
by fire, in the autumn of 1787, of all his law-books. 
They wei'e not many, but their loss was a grievous one 
to him with his then limited means. Returning to 
New Brunswick, he was successful in obtaining a con- 
siderable practice, and was soon enabled to replace the 
volumes which had been destroyed. 

Andrew Kirkpatrick's remarkable success in gain- 
ing business was in good part the result of his untiring 
industry. He was well aware that there are no royal 
roads to learning, and he jjractised the brave and noble 
exhortation which he often j)reached in later life to his 
sons, and numerous young friends, "Whatsoever thy 
hand iindeth to do, do it with all thy mighty Another 



19 

favorite maxim with liim was, that " whatever is worth 
doing at all., is worth doing 'welV 

The estimation in which the successful young law- 
yer was held by his fellow-citizens was shown by his 
being elected a member of the House of Assembly 
in 1797. He sat with that body during the first 
session, but, on the l7th of January, he resigned his 
seat, having accepted the position of a judge of the 
Supreme Court ; six years later he was advanced to 
the office of Chief Justice of the State, as successor to 
the Hon. James Kinsey. He was twice reelected, hold- 
ing the high and honorable position for twenty-one 
years. "He was the heau-ideal^'' said Aaron Ogden 
Dayton, in an address delivered in 1839, " of a minister 
of justice. No powdered wig or ermined robe was re- 
quired to excite I'everence for the bench on which he 
presided. His snow-white hair, his clear, florid com- 
plexion, his dark, lustrous eye, his strong but delicately- 
chiselled features, the expression of gravity and firm- 
ness, blended with a placid sweetness, in his counte- 
nance, his imposing form, and the easy, graceful dignity 
with which he discharged his judicial duties, ariested 
the attention of the most ignorant and thoughtless, 
and inspired the beholder with a respect approaching 
to awe. His enunciation was slow and distinct ; his 
voice full and musical ; and his opinions, when not pre- 



20 

viously prepared, were delivered witli fluency and 
clearness; wlien written, the language in \vliicli they 
were clothed was marked by great purity and preci- 
sion. But it was not only in these external qualities 
of a judge, important as they are, that he excelled. 
He was a learned, and, in regard to real estate, a pro- 
foundly learned lawyer. It is said by the late Charles 
Butler, one of the most eminent jurists of his day, that 
he is the best lawyer, and will succeed best in his pro- 
fession, who best understands Coke upon Lyttleton. 
Few members of the profession have studied those 
great writers more diligently, or comprehended their 
works more thoroughly, than the late chief justice of 
whom I am speaking ; and, upon many of the difficult 
questions respecting title to land which came before 
him for adjudication in the course of his long official 
career, his opinions exhibit a depth of research, a famil- 
iarity with leading principles, a clearness of compre- 
hension, a power of discrimination, and a justness of 
reasoning, which upon such questions secured him the 
particular confidence of the bar, and entitled him to 
rank among the first American jurists. His mind was 
not rapid, but it was uncommonly exact, and the want 
of quickness was carefully supplied by unweaiying ap- 
plication to the object of research. His frequent re- 
election to the bench by the representatives of the peo- 



21 

pie of the State, unaffected by tlie mutations of party, 
sets the seal of public opinion to his impartial admin- 
istration of justice, the general integrity of his charac- 
ter, and the ability with which his duties were per- 
formed." 

Andrew Kirkpatrick's fame as a judge, the charac- 
ter of his mind, his powers of reasoning, his legal acu- 
men, and varied and extensive attainments, can best be 
gathered from nn examination of his learned and elabo- 
rate opinions contained in Pennington's, Southard's, 
and the first three volumes of Halstead's " Reports of 
the Supreme Court of New Jersey." Many of his ju- 
dicial opinions, such as the decision made in the case 
of Arnold against Mundy, are among the most impor- 
tant ever made in the State. 

The contemporaries of the chief justice have of 
course all passed away, and there are comparatively 
few now living who have any personal recollections of 
him as an associate judge, or even as the presiding 
judge of the Supreme Court. His nephew, the Hon. 
D. K. Este, of Cincinnati, and son-in-law of President 
Harrison, writes to me : " From my boyhood all my 
recollections of the chief justice are most respectful, fa- 
vorable, and affectionate. On my way to and from 
Princeton College, I was always kindly received and 
entertained, and had the great benefit of his friendly 



22 

advice. In the early part of May, in the year 1809, a 
few days before I left my father's house for the West, 
I called to bid my uncle good -by. When I stated to 
him that I intended to practise law in Ohio, he said if 
I had determined to go he would give me letters of in- 
troduction, and he did, saying when he handed them 
to me : ' As a young lawyer going to a new country, 
when you commence the practice of the law, be the 
first man in the court-room, and the last to leave it, and 
never accept of an office until you are able to live with- 
out it' " 

Chancellor Halstead, in writing to me, says : " Judge 
Kirkpatrick was chief justice when I and five others 
were examined for license, in 1814, before him and the 
other judges of the Supreme Court and the bar. I 
well remember, that after announcing our admission, 
the chief justice made a few remarks to us in which he 
impressed the necessity of continued study, and said in 
substance that, if we would set apart three hours a day 
to reading law for three years, we would make law- 
yers. I saw him often afterward on the bench of 
the Supreme Court at Trenton, and of the Circuit Court 
at Newark. I have argued before him in both courts. 
I have often sat at the dinner-table of the bench and 
bar at Newark with him ; but I was too young to be 
very near him while there were many old and distin- 



23 

guisLed counsel at the table. I only knew Andrew 
Kirkpatrick as chief justice, not in social life, but as 
one holding a position so far above me as to be beyond 
even my ambition. His personal appearance, the ma- 
jesty of his countenance, and the dignity with which 
he presided on the bench, were so striking, that to this 
day the impression made on my mind remains that he 
was the most splendid judicial representative of the 
jus hoivumque of Sallust that I have ever seen." 

Another ex-Chancellor of New Jersey, the Hon, 
Henry W. Green, writes : " The bar of the present day 
know very little of the life of Chief- Justice Kirkpatrick, 
one of the most eminent of our judicial officers. Tra- 
ditions, indeed, are rife among the profession, of his 
great common-law learning, of his judicial dignity, of 
his commanding appearance, and manly beauty, of his 
caustic severity, of the extent and accuracy of his com- 
mon-law learning, of his contempt for pretension and 
ignorance, but here our information ends." 

A veneral^le citizen of Newark, who so well repre- 
'sented our country at the court of Sardinia, the 
Hon. William B. Kinney, writes to me from Florida: 
" My personal recollections of the chief justice are those 
of a boy law-student, who was deeply impressed by his 
manly beauty and grace, his imposing bearing on the 
bench, and his fine Grecian head and bust, among the 



24 

finest I liave seen among living men. I was too young 
to appreciate his higher qualities as a civilian." 

Judge L. Q. C. Elmer, one of the oldest members of 
the bar of New Jersey, in practice for many years while 
the chief justice was on the bench, informs me that 
he was "the best-looking and fairest presiding officer 
that he ever saw in a court, and that the judge told him 
that he had never known what it was to be sick, not 
even to have a toothache. It was the custom then," 
adds Judge Elmer, " for the judges going the circuits 
to be entertained by some member of the bar, or other 
person, their salaries being small. On two occasions 
the chief justice took up his quarters with me at Bridge- 
ton. At the time of his first visit, in June, 1821, eight 
or ten judges and justices dined together at the public- 
house. It had happened, a few days previous, that a 
suit had been tried before a hard-mouthed justice, pres- 
ent at the table ; when the lawyers engaged in the case 
got angry, the justice tried to stop them in vain ; at last 
he cried out, ' Stop ! I give judgment for the plaintiff, 
and may you all go to hell together ! ' This story was 
told to Chief-Justice Kirkpatrick at the table. After 
listening to its recital, he turned round very gravely 
to the justice who sat near him, and said, in his digni- 
fied manner : ' My dear sir, however correct the first 
part of your judgment was, I think, in comj)assion to 



25 

the parties and lawyers, we sliall have to reverse the 
concludino; clause.' " 

Another story, which was a favorite with the 
judge, was of a certain justice of the peace in one of 
the western border settlements of New Jersey, whose 
knowledge of the law 1)eing of an exceedingly limited 
character, when a puzzling case came before him, had, 
as a dernier ressort, a habit of advising the parties to 
fio-ht it out with their fists — the iirst one who cried 
" Hold, enough ! " in the knock-down argument, to pay 
the costs. This mode of dispensing justice, however, 
did not meet the approbation of the authorities, and 
the justice was ultimately deprived of his commission. 

I may in this connection relate another incident. 
On one occasion the judge, who prided himself on his 
punctuality, was delayed by his horse throwing a shoe, 
and was compelled, by the time lost in having it re- 
placed, to drive fast in order to arrive at his destina- 
tion at the hour appointed for the court to open. Over- 
taking another vehicle containing two persons going 
slowly in the same direction, he courteously requested 
them to permit him to pass, as he was in haste, but, 
when he attempted to go by they obstructed the way, 
and, with a dog-in-the-manger spirit, would neither 
hasten on themselves nor permit the judge to do so • 
the result was that he arrived half an hour late. After 



26 

tlie court liad been duly opened, the judge, describing 
to tbe slieriif the men who had impeded his progress 
on the highway, directed him to cause their arrest. 
The culprits were soon found and brought before the 
court, when for the first they recognized with fear and 
trembling the chief justice, who administered a severe 
rebuke and imposed a heavy tine upon them for im- 
peding his path, and thereby delaying the opening 
of court and the administration of justice. 

Chief Justice Kirkpatrick, who was a firm believer 
in capital punishment, and the whipping-post, and had 
little faith in the efficacy of confining criminals in State 
prisons from which they might be pardoned, used to 
remark that " there were but three ways of punishing 
^by the neck, hack, and pocket ; " and, in passing judg- 
ment on a criminal, would often say, " A7id this is the 
wages of sin^ 

Andrew Kirkpatrick was superseded as chief jus- 
tice by the Legislature appointing a successor in 1824. 
It was done so secretly that neither the judge nor his 
troops of friends and admirers had the slightest suspi- 
cion of such a proceeding until the act was consum- 
mated. Had they known aught of the movement, his 
friends were so numerous, so respectable, and so power- 
ful, including prominent men of both parties, that they 
would doubtless have been successful in preventing it. 



27 

The judge, who was still in the enjoyment of a vig- 
orous manhood, if not, indeed, actually in the prmie of 
life, and ao;ainst whom there had never been a breath of 
reproach, felt deeply hurt at his uncalled-for removal^ 
as well as the secret manlier in which it had been 
effected, through the influence of a number of young 
and unscrupulous members of the bar. 

Having now briefly followed the official career of 
Andrew Kirkpatrick to its close, I will retrace my 
steps for the purpose of making a few allusions to his 
home life and habits, and giving some extracts from 
his private correspondence. 

In the year 1792 he married Jane Bayard, the beau- 
tiful daughter of Colonel John Bayard, of Revolu- 
tionary memory, Speaker of the Pennsylvania Legis- 
lature, and in 1785 a member of the old Congress which 
met in New York ; who removed from Philadelphia to 
New Brunswick four years previous to his daughter's 
mari'iage. The people there showed their appreci- 
ation of Colonel Bayard by elevating liim to the sev- 
eral offices of mayor of the city, judge of the Court of 
Common Pleas, and ruling elder of the Presbyterian 
Church. His portrait now hangs by the side of his 
distinguished son-in-law, in the picture-gallery of 
Princeton College. Andrew Kirkpatrick and Jane 
Bayard were at the time of their marriage called the 



28 

handsomest couple in New Brunswick, whicli we can 
readily believe in looking at their portraits, taken in 
middle life, and also when they had fallen into " the 
sere and yellow leaf." 

The portraits of Colonel Bayard, Judge Kirkpat- 
rick, and others of their rank, mark the broad distinc- 
tions that existed in society at the beginning of the 
present century, when the gentry and officials of the 
land appeared in velvet coats with gold lace, embroid- 
ered vests, knee-breeches, buckled shoes, and pow- 
dered hair, and when no one below their degree as- 
sumed their dress. Democracy had not then thrown 
down the barrier which existed between the garb of a 
gentleman and that of his tailor or servant. Much of 
the stateliness of colonial days remained, and the com- 
munity looked up to judges and other public men 
with a degree of reverence approaching to awe, which 
of course cannot be felt for the miscreants of the pres- 
ent day who have succeeded them, and occupy their 
honored places on the bench and elsewhere. 

As bearing on their early married life, the follow- 
ing brief note may be read with interest ; and, for the 
information of those unfamiliar with the old-time prac- 
tice, I may state that, if a young married couple could, 
at the expiration of twelve months from their marriage- 
day, testify that at no time during the year had either 



29 

wished himself or herself unmarried, they were entitled 
to receive from the hride's father a " a flitch of bacon : " 

" My dear Jane : 

" As you intend keeping to-morrow as the anniver- 
sary of your marriage, we ought to have held a court 
to have examined both you and Mr. Kirkpatrick, 
whether you are entitled to receive the flitch of bacon. 
As I presume you might pass trial, I have sent you a 
liam (not having a flitch) and a tongue, which please 

to accept from 

" Your aftectionate father, 

" John Bayard." 

Like many other distinguished lawyers, such as 
Lord Thurlow, Sir William Jones, and Blackstone, 
Andrew Kirkpatrick appears in early life, both before 
and after his marriage, to have been addicted to poetry. 
In 1791, after reading Beattie's "Minstrel," he vrrote; 

" Thus little Edwin, melancholy wight, 
To rocks, and wood?, and wilds, and murmuring streams, 
Full oft his plaintive ditty did recite 
In dreary cave. Nor dared the cheerful scenes 
Of man restored, nor converse sweet ; but weens 
That man was made for woe. Mistaken elf! 
And to appease the wrath divine, he dreams 
His life away. And, in contemning pelf. 
Repines at human nature, and contemns himself. 



30 

Ah ! night-bewildered bard ! more wise than man ! 

Nor with the lot to man assigned content ! 

Canst thou correct Eternal Wisdom's plan, 

Or please by works for mortals never meant? 

Or hop'st for joys to mortals never sent ? 

Avaunt! nor dare Heaven's wondrous works to scan, 

Nor chide His goodness with thy vain complaint. 

Eternal Wisdom, ere the world began, 

Beheld, and saw it best that man sbould be but man." 

Like tlie great la^vyers alluded to, Andrew Kirk- 
patrick had the resolution to abandon the Muses, and 
to cast off " the Delilahs of the imagination," when em- 
barked on a more profitable vocation. 

On the first day of November, 1803, the chief jus- 
tice writes, in a family diary kept by the female mem- 
bers of his household : " This is the anniv^ersary of our 
marriage, and closes the eleventh year. As usual, we 
had the pleasure of the company of several of our 
friends. Besides those in town, we had Dr. and Mrs. 
Rodgers, of New York, and Dr. and Mrs. Tennant. 
How small is the probability we shall ever again meet 
together in this world ! " 

In the year following he writes to Mrs. Kirkpatrick, 
then on a visit to friends in Washington: ""I am 
happy to hear that you got through your journey so 
comfortably and without any accident. As to the 
fatigue, that, I hope, will be amply compensated by 



31 

the pleasure of seeing your friends and all the great 
people of Washington ; for, however you might think 
of them in a diiferent situation, now that they are the 
rulers of the nation, their acquaintance will be inter- 
esting. Names, in spite of all our philosophy, will 
have a powerful effect on the mind. Mrs. Madison, 
the wife of the Secretary of State, is quite a different 
being from Dolly Paine in her mother's boarding-house, 
or Dolly Todd, the wife of an obscure Scotch attorney, 
in one of the alleys of Philadelphia. I do not, how- 
ever, in the least, wish to detract from her worth be- 
cause she has risen from low estate, I have a thousand 
reasons to prevent me from doing this, and esj)ecially 
the instruction of the wise man, who says that kings 
walk on foot, while beggars ride on horses. Indeed, it 
requires but little observation to see that the greatest 
worth frequently dwells in obscurity. . . I thank you 
for your kind wishes that I should participate in the 
pleasure of your new acquaintances. I, however, have 
no wish on the occasion, having learned long ago that 
great men are great at a distance only, and that, when 
you approach them, they generally dwindle down into 
common size. The President himself, indeed, I confess 
I have a great desire to see, for, although it is now 
fashionable to detract from the real merit of men high 
in office, who do not go just as we would have them, 



32 

and altbougli I think he is greatly to be censured for 
many things which he has done, both in acquiring and 
managing the presidency, yet he has always appeared, 
and still does appear to me, to be a man of distin- 
guished talents, and I have no doubt an honest zeal for 
the public good. And though he should suppose that 
this good can be best promoted by having the Admin- 
istration in his own hands, and should be guilty of 
some aberrations from right to preserve and maintain 
the Administration, yet in this how does he differ from 
those who oppose him ? I believe not much." 

In another paragraph of the same letter, he gives 
a picture of the primitive mode of travel between New 
York and New Brunswick sixty-six years ago : " I have 
called to congratulate Mr. Scott ' on his mamage. The 
family chartered a sloop last week for New York, and 
on Friday returned with the bride and bridegroom, to 
the no small joy of all concerned. I saw the bride in 
church yesterday, but, as she was veiled, I could not 
discern her countenance." 

A week later he writes to his wife, saying : " On 
Friday I was asked to dine Avith Mr. and Mrs. Van 
Rensselaer, of Albany, at Mr. Smith's. We had a 

' Colonel Warren Scott, of New Brunswick, one of two survivors of 
the Princeton College class of 1795; the other being Judge Elbert Herring, 
of New- York City. 



33 

pleasant part}^ Mr. and Mrs. Garnet, Mr. Lewis, Mr. 
and Mrs. Stone, and, wliat added most to the satisfac- 
tion of all, just as we were sitting down to dinner, 
Judge Patterson came in. He looks mucli better than 
when he left; Brunswick. Yesterday I dined at Judge 
Patterson's. They had no other company except the 
Van Rensselaers and your brother John. Mr. McCor- 
mick and Mr. Cooper, of New York, came in and took 
a snack of the fragments. They all drank tea with us, 
and, wonderful to relate, so did Mrs. White and Miss 
Ellis. Mr. and Mrs. Boggs were also of the party. So 
you see, at home or abroad, we still go on eating and 
drinking, visiting and being visited, for this is the 
course of the world. . . . 

" I have been considerably engaged duriug the last 
week in court, and, although I do not frequently trouble 
you with my judicial concerns, a circumstance has oc- 
curred which I cannot forbear to mention, because one 
of our friends is most concerned in it. The famous 
John Smith went before the grand jury, and entered 
a complaint, on oath, against Mr. Boggs,' for stealing an 
umbrella. Hah ! Mr. Boggs, charged with stealing ! 
Well, the grand jury, not easily gulled by the oath of 
such a fellow, carefully investigated the case, exam- 
ined a number of witnesses who were present at the 

' Robert Boggs, father of Rear- Admiral Boggs, U. S. N. 



34 

transaction complained of, and, after full deliberation, 
by unanimous vote, indicted the accuser Mmself of per- 
jury, who, for want of bail, is now confined in the com- 
mon jail, on that account. Surely, he that diggeth a 
pit shall fall into the pit which his own hands have 
digged. . . . 

" I am totally unable to form any judgment about 
the most easy and safe way of returning from Wash- 
ington. It seems to me that, in the heat of summer, 
the cabin of a boat, with all the bilge-water about it, 
must to' you be altogether insupportable. Besides, I 
think it was your friend. Dr. Johnson, who said he 
would never go by water, when he could go by land. 
But of this we will have an o2:)j)ortunity of saying 
more, before you are ready to adopt either one mode 
or another." 

Judge Kii'kpatrick was a frequent visitor to New 
York, where he was well acquainted with the leading 
men of tlie bar and bench, 1)y many of whom he was 
often strongly urged to remove to that city, as offering 
a better and wider field for his advancement ; but he 
was too much attached to his native State to leave, 
and declined to accej)t any of the many inducements 
held forth to him to make the change from New Jer- 
sey to New York. In his journeys between New 
Brunswick and New York, he generally proceeded by 



35 

land in liis own carriage, stopping to dine at Eliza- 
town — noted in tliose days, as Irving tells us, for its 
fine girls and vile mosquitoes — or more often at the 
celebrated Newark inn, while Arcliy Gilford, arrayed 
in his famous green coat, attended personally to the 
wants of his distinguished friend the chief justice. 
Sometimes, however, the journey was made by water, 
occupying from thirty to forty liours. On the first 
day of January, 1817, lie writes to Mrs. Kirkpatrick 
from New York : " You no doubt looked for a letter 
on Saturday night, but you should have remembered 
that those who travel by water must wait for wind 
and tide. Instead of seeing New York the evening of 
the day I left you, we floated with the tide only till 
about tw^elve o'clock, and then grounded safely on 
what is called the middle ground, where we lay, in a 
perfect calm and surrounded by a thick fog, until six 
o'clock the next morning. After getting under way^ 
as tbe sailors say, we had a pleasant, gentle sail, till 
we ofot within about four miles of our destination. 
Then again we were taught to know that our mas- 
ters — wind and tide — were against us ; and we were 
obliged to cast anchor and lie in view of the city a 
considerable time. At length, just about sundown, 
we arrived at the dock, after a passage of tbirty-two 
liours." 



36 

From Bridgeton, in June, 1821, the chief justice 
writes to his wife : " You see I am again at Bridgeton, 
from whence yesterday you heard from me. My jaunt 
to Cape May was a mere jaunt of pleasure. My friend 
Mr. Elmer, a gentleman of the bar, gave me a seat in 
his carriage, that is, in a West Jersey wagon, which 
has neither S2)rings nor spring-seats; but which, in 
this sandy country, notwithstanding, does very well. 
The distance is about forty miles, and we accomplished 
it in a day, giving ourselves plenty of time to rest and 
be refreshed. Upon my arrival at the court-house, I 
was waited upon by Major Holmes, and invited to his 
house, which invitation I very cheerfully accepted, not 
being overpleased with the appearance of things at 
the tavern. This is the same gentleman at whose 
house I stayed when I was before in that county. He 
is a plain man, but is very hospitable, and has every 
thing neat and good. His whole family consists of 
himself and one daughter, and, I believe, two servants. 
But, though pleasantly enough situated, my stay was 
not long. The whole time which I spent in court, 1 
believe, did not exceed thirty minutes ; the court ad- 
journed on the afternoon of Tuesday, the same day it 
met, and in the evening I went down with a new ac- 
quaintance to Cape Island, about thirteen miles. We 
reached that place at eight o'clock, and I retired pretty 



37 

early, witli a view of rising tlie next morning in time 
to see the sun rise from the ocean ; and I accordingly- 
rose at the dawn of day, and walked down to the 
beach ; but, unfortunately, the horizon became covered 
with clouds, so that I lost my anticipated pleasure, and 
returned very much disappointed. Mr. Elmer came 
down to breakfast, intending to return immediately 
and proceed on our way home ; but as the day was 
very fine, the ocean to me a novel, grand, and ever- 
varying object, and especially as they were just pre- 
paring to commence a new kind of fishery, that is, 
a fishery for porpoises, which had never been taken 
there before, and of whose skins they expect to make 
leather, and of their blubber, oil, I persuaded him to 
stay the day, to which, having no less curiosity than 
myself, he readily consented. We had the pleasure 
of seeing their first attempt upon the porpoises, and 
all the ecstasy of their success. Bony could not have 
been more elated with the capture of a citadel than 
they with the capture of ten of these fish. We spent 
the day very pleasantly, returned to the court-house 
in the evening, and the next day, that is, on Thursday, 
to this place. 

" General Giles, whom I met at Cape May, gave 
me a very friendly invitation to his house, where I 
have been since my return. Nobody can be more at- 



38 

tentive, more polite, and more friendly than Mrs. Gr. 
Slie is, indeed, an excellent woman. 

" Our court liere commences to-morrow ; but, from 
all the information I can collect, will last but a day or 
two, soon after which I shall take my course to Salem, 
about eighteen miles, for which journey I have the 
offer of several gentlemen to accompany me and take 
me in their carriages ; so you see I meet with great at- 
tention and respect \\\ foreign countries. 

" My jaunt hitherto has indeed been a very delight- 
ful one ; the conveyances ready, easy, and convenient, 
and everybody respectful and polite in the highest 
degree. Butj after all, I begin to wish to be home, 
for liame is limney , 

On the 31st of October, of the same year, the judge 
writes to Mrs. Kirkpatrick : " I send this little confi- 
dential messenger to greet you on the morning of your 
wedding-day. May it present to your mind, as it does 
to mine, remembrances sweet and soothing to the soul ! 
Our course has not been brilliant, but it has been 
better : it has been calm and peaceful, and undis- 
turbed ; may its stream still continue to flow gently on, 
and our little bark be wafted along by the fragrant 
breezes till we reach our destined port — our haven of 
eternal rest I " 

In November, 1822, while absent from home, hold- 
ing court, the judge writes to Mrs. Kirkpatrick : " Your 



89 

letter wliicli I received yesterday morning was indeed 
balm to my soul. The image of my dear Elizabeth, 
as she lay langnishing on the sofa when I took my 
parting kiss, dwelt upon my mind the whole night 
preceding. I was not conscious of having closed my 
eyes in sleep, and of course felt very much exhausted 
and fatigued when I arose. Your intelligence revived 
my spirits and my strength, and I got through the day 
very comfortably. I have now had a good night's 
rest, and am this morning perfectly restored and per- 
fectly composed, most devoutly thanking my Heavenly 
Father that He hath been pleased so far to check the 
threatening disease of our dear daughter as to leave 
room at least for hope. I feel very much for you, and 
am exceedingly sorry that I cannot be with you in 
this very trying crisis ; but I know that you have 
with you another and a better Friend, who can say to 
the sick, ' Arise and live ! ' O that it may please Him 
thus to address her in whom our hearts are so nearly 
centred." The affectionate and fond father's hope was 
not realized. His beautiful and beloved daughter, 
so fair, so fragile, that she seemed fitted for other 
spheres than this rough world, was taken hence, and 
methinks I see the angels above beckoning her up- 
ward and upward, and saying — 

" Sister spirit, come away ! " 



40 

Judge Kirkpatrick was one of the original trustees 
of the Theological Seminary at Princeton, of which in- 
stitution his friends Alexander and Miller were pro- 
fessors, and in wliich he always expressed the warmest 
interest. He is the first person named in the charter 
granted by the Legislature of New Jersey, November 
15, 1822, and was the first president of the Board, 
holding that office until his death. He often said 
that, were he possessed of large means, there was no 
object to which he would give with greater pleasure 
than to a theological institution. He was a trustee of 
Princeton College from 1807 to the time of his decease, 
and was one of the vice-presidents of the Alumni As- 
sociation, founded in 1826, James Madison being presi- 
dent. In 1825 there was formed at Princeton a society 
called " The New-Jersey Literary and Philosophical 
Society." Among the members were most of the 
prominent professional gentlemen of the State. Chief- 
Justice Kirkpatrick presided at the meeting at which 
the society was formed, and was chosen its president. 
The meetings of these societies and of the college 
trustees often called the judge to Princeton. In 1813, 
Daniel Webster, then a member of Congress, and at 
the time on a visit to Richard Stockton, dining with 
the late Samuel Bayard, of Princeton, who had invited 
him to meet his kinsman, Kirkpatrick, and Ashbel 



41 

Green, pronounced tlie cliief justice and the college 
president to be two of the most remarkable men he 
had ever met. 

Colonel William C. Alexander, a son of Judge 
Kirkpatrick's intimate friend, Archibald Alexander, 
on whom he pronounced the jocose eulogy, " Dr. Al- 
exander is the prince of Methodist preachers," writes : 
" Chief Justice Kirkpatrick had retired from the bench 
before I came to the bar. I had, therefore, no per- 
sonal knowledge of him. I remember my boyish ad- 
miration of the grand-looking old man, as, dressed in 
the superb costume of the old school, he made his 
semi-annual visit to Princeton, to attend the meetings 
of the Board of Trustees. I remember the effect pro- 
duced on me while a student of college in 1823 by the 
dignified and most impressive and imposing manner in 
which he inaugurated into office the Rev. Dr. Carna- 
han as president of the college, but I repeat that I 
was not honored with his j^ersonal acquaintance, and 
contented myself with admiring him at a distance." 

Andrew Kirkpatrick had a wide circle of distin- 
guished acquaintances, among whom were many promi- 
nent actors in the Revolutionary War. Washington, 
Franklin, La Fayette, Patrick Henry, Hamilton, Gen- 
erals Gates, Greene, Knox, " Mad Anthony Wayne," 
and Lord Stirling, he knew, or had seen. With many 



42 

of the officers of liis own State, sucli as Generals Fre- 
lingliuysen and Wliite, who, witli 

" nerves of steel, and hearts of oak," 

drove back the enemy from the battle-fields of New 
Jersey, he was on the most intimate terms. Kosciusko 
was often entertained under his hospitable roof, and 
Elias Boudinot, one of the presidents of the Conti- 
nental Congress, and first president of the American 
Bible Society, w^as his particular friend. He and his 
daughter, Mrs. Bradford, widow of Washington's sec- 
ond Attorney-General, in travelling from Philadelphia 
to New York, always halted at New Brunswick to 
visit the chief justice. His daughter, Mrs. Dr. Cogs- 
well, thus alludes, in a private journal, to these visits : 
" Dr. Boudinot and Mrs. Bradford usually made ' a 
progress,' spring and fall, and they failed not to stop, 
coming and going, at our domicile. Still I hear the 
rumble of the old coach up the hill. I see the gouty 
old gentleman descend, then Madam Bradford, fol- 
lowed by her trunks and boxes. Then the finery she 
condescended to show us. Then the dinner in Mammy 
Sally's best style. Then the long wearing through 
the day of ceremony, the breakfast, the farewell ; and 
the coach, coachman, footman, and agreeable visitors 
departed." 



43 

One of the less distinguislied friends of the family 
was Mr. Hauto, an accomplished German gentleman, 
engaged in Pennsylvania in coal-mining, who was a 
frequent and favorite guest, often remaining under the 
judge's hosj)ital)le roof for many days. He was a 
member of the Philadelphia house of White, Hauto 
& Hazard. He spoke several languages, and told in 
his broken English many stories of what he had seen 
and heard in various portions of the globe. On one oc- 
casion the chief justice rallied him about marrying 
a widow lady residing on the banks of the Raritan, 
not far distant from New Brunswick. " Did you not 
go to see her," he asked, " as you came down on the 
other bank of the stream ? " " What, judge, with de 
breeches down ? " (bridges down). " Oh, by no means, 
Mr. Hauto, in that plight," said the chief justice, " by 
no means." The judge had another story which I will 
add as a pendant to the above, of his friend General 
Jackson, who, being accosted in company, by his tailor, 
who said, " Made your breeches, general," re2:»lied, 
mistaking his words, " Oh ! Major Bridges ! happy to 
see you. Major Bridges ! " 

The chief justice was a man of a singularly social 
turn of mind, fall of anecdote, with remarkable power 
of narration, fond of discussion and argument, and 
often carrying his ingenuity to the verge of paradox. 



44 

His wit, while keen and biting at times, was never ill- 
natured, and only severe wten directed against igno- 
rance and pompous pretension. He liad many Eevolu- 
tionary anecdotes, among them one of his own and his 
father-in-law's friend, General Muhleuburg — an old- 
time incident, and one of the most thrilling anecdotes 
of the war. What was said of the old ballad of 
Chevy Chase, by Sir Philip Sidney, was true of Kirk- 
patrick's anecdote. It stirred up the heart-blood like 
the sound of a trumpet. Here is the story: When 
the war began, in 17V6, Muhlenburg was the rector 
of a church in Dunmore County, Virginia. On a sun- 
day morning he administered the communion of the 
Lord's Supper to his congregation, stating that in the 
afternoon he would preach a sermon on the duties men 
owe to their country. At the appointed hour, the edi- 
fice was crowded with anxious listeners. The discourse 
was founded upon the text from Solomon, " There is a 
time for every purpose and for every work." The ser- 
mon burned with patriotic ardor ; every sentence and 
intonation exhibited the speaker's deep earnestness in 
what he was saying. Pausing a moment at the close of 
his discourse, he repeated the w^ords of his text, and 
then, in tones of thunder, exclaimed, " Tlie time to preach 
is past : the time to fight has come ! " and, suiting 
the action to the words, he threw from his shoulders 



45 

the episcopal robes, and stood before his congregation 
arrayed in military uniform. Drumming for recruits 
was commenced on the spot. Muhlenburg drew from 
bis pocket a colonel's commission fi'om tbe Continental 
Congress, and it is said almost every man of suitable 
age enlisted forthwith. Nearly three hundred men were 
enrolled and immediately organized into the Eighth 
Virginia, or German regiment, of which Muhlenburg 
was the coloneL 

After retiring fix)m the bench, in 1824, the judge 
spent the few remaining years of his life in his pleas- 
ant home at New Brunswick, retired from all public 
employment, finding happiness in the bosom of his 
family, and surrounded by troops of friends. His time 
was in summer nearly equally divided between his libra- 
ry and his large garden, where he found much gratifica- 
tion in assisting his gardener in the care of the trees 
and shrubs and flowers. The house which he built, 
and the grounds surrounding it which he laid out, may 
still be seen, but little changed from what they were 
twoscore years ago. During the autumn and winter 
of 1830 he gradually grew weaker, till, before the close 
of the year, he was unable to leave his house. A week 
previous to the parting day, he said to Mrs. Dr. How, 
his only surviving daughter : " I am declining as 
gently as anyone can, and I do not know that I should 



46 

wish to be resuscitated. Goodness and mercy have fol- 
lowed me all the days of my life, and, I will trust, to 
their close. I trust in the fulness of the promises for 
my everlasting peace. It is a solemn thing to stand 
on the verge of the eternal world, but I am calm in 
the contemplation of death, and, unless anguish seize 
me, so I hope to remain. There are some parts of the 
Gospel too mysterious for us to understand ; it reveals 
generals, not particulars ; but, such as I could under- 
stand, I have, particularly for the later years of my 
life, tried to make the rule of my conduct ; but, when 
I compare myself with its purity and holiness, God 
knows, I feel my want of pardon. There are some doc- 
trines entirely beyond me — that of the Trinity, the 
atonement, if general or limited — ^but I believe that 
God, in some way, has made an opening, through Christ, 
for the salvation and happiness of His creatures. 
Though I speak confidently as to my future peace, I 
pretend to no special illumination on the subject of an- 
other world or any future state, but I trust in the 
promises of the Gospel. Goodness and mercy have 
followed me, and to God be the praise ! These are the 
grounds of my hope." 

A few days later he remarked to one of his chil- 
dren : "I have no disease, but I am worn out, and shall 
soon leave you." His words were fulfilled. He died 



47 

calmly and peacefully, and surrounded by those wlio 
loved him best, in the parlor of bis own bouse, on tbe 
7tb day of January, 1831, and was buried in tbe grave- 
yard of tbe First Presbyterian Cburcb, of wbicb be 
was for many years a trustee, and wbere, for balf a 
century, be bad listened to tbe Word of God. His 
bigbly-gifted Christian wife sleeps in tbe same grave, 
and a daughter and three sons rest by their side, be- 
neath the shadow of a cypress planted by the chief 
justice himself. 

I have thus, with such ability as I possess, briefly 
told tbe story of tbe uneventful career of one whose 

" life was gentle, and tbe elements 
So mixed in him that Nature might stand np 
And say to all the world, ' This was a man ! ' " 

And I can most truly adopt Lord Erskine's words in 
closing the preface to Mr. Fox's speeches, that " I re- 
gard it as the most happy circumstance of my life to 
have bad the opportunity of thus publicly expressing 
veneration for his memory." 

I know not bow I can more fittingly conclude this 
memorial of Andrew Kirkpatrick, than by quoting a 
passage with which Mr. Bryant closed a discourse on 
"Washington Irving : " If it were becoming," said tbe 
poet, " at this time, and in this assembly, to address 



48 

our departed friend as if in his immediate presence, I 
would say, Farewell, thou who hast entered into the 
rest prepared, from the foundation of the world, for 
serene and gentle spirits like thine. Farewell ! happy 
in thy life, happy in thy death, happier in the reward 
to which that death was the assured passage. The 
brightness of that enduring fame which thou hast won 
on earth is but a shadowy symbol of the glory to 
which thou ai't admitted in the world beyond the 
grave. Thy errand upon earth was an errand of peace 
and good-will to men, and thou art now in a region 
where hatred and strife never enter, and where the 
harmonious activity of those who inhabit it acknowl- 
edges no impulse less noble or less pure than that of 
love." 



A SKETCH or THE LIFE 



JA^E BAYAED KIEKPATEICK, 



COXSISTING < HU:y i V OP 



PASSAGES FEOM A2s LNFIMSHED ATTTOBIOGEAPHY. 



Among the many Protestants who were driven from 
France by the policy of Cardinal Richelieu, under 
Louis XIII., was the ReVi Balthazar Bayard. Be- 
fore the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the pious 
and conscientious Huguenot sacrificed his property, and, 
severing long-cherished ties in his native land, had ex- 
iled himself to Holland, that he might enjoy the liber- 
ty of worshipping God according to the dictates of his 
conscience. His standing in the society of his adopted 
home may be inferred from the connection in marriage 
which was made by his only daughter, Judith, who 
married Petrus Stuy vesant, the last of the Dutch Gov- 
ernors of New Amsterdam. One condition the pretty 
Huguenot imposed upon her lover, and that was, that 
he should persuade her three brothers to accompany 



52 

them on their projected journey to the New World. 
This the good-natured governor succeeded in doing. 
On their arrival in New Amsterdam, in 1647, James, 
the youngest brother, purchased a manor on the Bo- 
hemia River, Cecil County, Maryland, erecting there 
a fine mansion and an Episcopal chapel. Before his 
departure fi*om Holland he married Blandina Conde, 
an accomplished Huguenot lady, who spoke several 
languages. Four children were born to them in their 
American home — a daughter and three sons — the 
youngest of whom, called James, resided with his 
mother after she became a widow, and on her death in- 
herited the manor-house. James Bayard married Miss 
Ashton. They had two sons, John and James Ashton, 
their ages differing half an hour. These twins became 
objects of the most tender affection to their excellent 
grandmother, who strove, from the earliest dawn of 
reason to imbue their minds with sentiments of exalted 
piety. A daughter, who died in her seventeenth year, 
was engaged to the celebrated Rev. John Rodgers, D. D., 
who a few years later married her cousin, Elizabeth Bay- 
ard. 

John Bayard was born August 11, 1738, in the 
Bohemia manor-house. His father died without a will, 
and, being the eldest son, he became entitled, by the 
laws of Maryland, to the whole real estate. Such, how- 



53 

ever, was his ajffection for his twin-brother, younger thaii 
himself, that, no sooner had he reached the age of man- 
hood, than he conveyed to him one-half the estate. 
After receiving an academical education under Dr. Fin- 
ley, he entered the counting-house of John Rhea, a 
merchant of Philadelphia. He early became a com- 
municant of the Presbyterian Church under the charge 
of the Rev. Gilbert Tennant, and a few years after his 
marriage with Margaret Hodge, of Philadelphia, he was 
chosen a ruling elder, and filled the place with zeal 
and reputation. Mr. Whitefield, while on his visits to 
America, became intimately acquainted with Mr. Bay- 
ard, and was much attached to him. They made sev- 
eral tours together. In 1770 Mr. Bayard lost his only 
brother, Dr. James A. Bayard, a man of promising tal- 
ents, of prudence and skill, of a most amiable disposi- 
tion, and growing reputation. When his brother'^ 
widow died, he adopted the children, and educated 
I them as his own. One of them was the distinguished 
I statesman, James A. Bayard. 

At the commencement of the war. Colonel Bayard 
I took a decided part in favor of his country. At the 
I head of the second battalion of the Philadelphia 
j troops, he marched to the assistance of Washington, 
j and was present at the battle of Trenton. He was a 
member of the Council of Safety, and was for many 



54 

years Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. In 
1785 Colonel Bayard was appointed a member of the 
old Congress, then in session in New York. Three 
years later he removed to New Brunswick, where he 
was mayor of the city, judge of the Court of Common 
Pleas, and a ruling elder of the Church. Here he died, 
January 7, 1806. He frequently commended himself 
in his last illness to the blessed Redeemer, confident 
of His love, and his last words were, " Lord Jesus, re- 
ceive my spiriti" 

Jane, the eldest daughter of Colonel Bayard, writes 
as follows of her father : " Though engaged in the busy 
and tumultuous scenes of life, he never remitted his at- 
tention to religion. Neither politics, nor the pursuit 
of wealth and power, nor the attractions the world pre- 
sented to allure, ever turned him from the principles he 
embraced in youth. He could not be accused either of 
enthusiasm, on the one hand, nor melancholy and super- 
stition, on the other. He possessed a cheerful and be- f 
nign temperament, which softened the trials and ad- 
versities weighing on many periods of his life. His 
heart, naturally tender and ardent, was thus sustained 
in constant equanimity. The difficult eras of his life 
were adorned with bright and peculiar virtue. His 
impetuosity of temper required strong principle to sub- 
due, and the undeviating gentleness and forbearance 



55 

that lie exercised were admirable, and worthy of imita- 
tion." ' 

Ja]^e Bayaed was born in PhiladelpWa, July 12, 
1772. In an unfinished autobiography, ^vritten but a 
few years before her death, she says : " If we search 
into the treasures of memory, how few and scanty do 
tliey appear ! How faint the traces of what in reality 
were the most important events ! The attempt I am 
now making to recall my early days shows how few 
are the passages that remain of the earlier periods of 
my life. 

"The image of my mother is the principal object 
of which I have any recollection. Her countenance is 
indelibly fixed ; but no doubt powerfully sustained by 
the sweet portrait, on which I have so long gazed. 
Sc)me pleasant recollections of earliest days are asso- 
ciated with her. One I remember — and it is among 
my first — in riding out with her in her carriage, stand- 
ing before her and looking out at the clouds. They 
were those vast masses of vapor rising one over the 
other, like mountains in the skies. They have ever 
since been particularly objects of my admiration, and 
I not unfrequently stamped with the tender recollection 

^ The Light of Other Days: Sketches of the Past, and other selections 
from the writings of the late Mrs. Jane Kirkpatrick, edited by Mrs. Jane 
E. Cogswell, 1856. 



56 

of my early -lost mother. Oh, what a loss ! I feel as 
if I should have been another creature had she been 
spared to me, for then I should have believed that I 
was truly beloved. 

" In those days travelling was quite a different 
thing from what it now is. Our family dwelt in Phila- 
delphia, and a jaunt to New York, at least for a lady, 
was a great event. At present, a journey to Cincin- 
nati, St. Louis, or even New Orleans, is nothing to com- 
pare to it. There were few, if any, public conveyances. 
The roads were like what the common farm-roads now 
are — the hills rough and dangerous — ^the rivers with- 
out bridges, and the ferry-boats by no means convenient. 
All these obstacles made a journey a formidable un- 
dertaking. However, it was planned that my mother 
should visit some friends in the city, and enjoy a view 
of the grand scenery of the Hudson. She was enter- 
tained at the house of Mr. Nicholas Bayard, a distant 
relation of my father. He had a fine farm, bordering 
on the city. It was a large house, surrounded with a 
delightful garden, abounding with fruit-trees, shrub- 
bery, and flowers. A friendship was formed with this 
amiable family. Mr. N. Bayard had five daughters, 
but no son. But time will show the result of this 
visit in a future union of the two families. The next 



57 

child that my mother had was called, for this good and 
kind friend, in remembrance of this visit, Nicholas. 

" When the time of her return was fixed, a party 
of friends went out as far as Frankfort to welcome her 
back. I was carried along, no doubt much delighted, 
but all that I remember was the meeting of the car- 
riages, when I was handed from the window of one 
through the window of the other, with a feeling of 
terror, over the wheel, to find rest and joy in the arms 
of my mother. These feelings must have been vivid 
to be so long retained, as no one could possibly have 
told me of them. I was between two and three years 
old. 

" About this time our public affairs assumed an 
alarming appearance. War was approaching, with all 
its terrors, My ft^ther engaged in the cause of his 
country with all the ardor of patriotism. He was the 
colonel of a battalion of the city, but did not enter the 
United States Army. He afterward was a member of 
the Legislature, and was Speaker of the Assembly. 
This was a conspicuous station, and exposed him to the 
ill-will of the Tories, as well as of the British. The 
duties of his office drew him from home, and caused 
additional cares to my mother. Though a delicate 
woman, and placed in trying circumstances, she pos» 



58 

sessed firmness of mind, and on perilous occasions 
showed mucli energy and intrepidity. 

" My father purchased a farm in what was consid- 
ered a very safe part of the country. It was eighteen 
miles from the city, on the Schuylkill. This he de- 
signed as a retreat for his family in case the enemy 
should attack Philadelphia. 

" The first alarm that I remember was when it was 
reported that the E-oebuck was in the Delaware, and 
would soon make an attack. I recollect the commo- 
tion in the house, boxes piled up in the parlor, furni- 
ture packing, and the confusion and alarm through the 
house. ' The Roebuck ! the Roebuck ! ' resounded ; but 
what this was, I had no idea. Many of the family ran 
up-stairs to look out of the trap-door in the roof I 
followed on, but saw nothing, neither indeed was the 
vessel in sight ; but the idea of a man-of war approach- 
ing so near filled all the town with consternation. 

" The family was removed to Plymouth, which, 
from that time, became its residence for several succes- 
sive years. The house was very plain, and stood on 
the road-side ; but the views round it were pleasant, 
and the banks of thj Schuylkill were beautiful, and 
became the favorite walk. There was a fine open wood, 
quite clear of underbrush, through which the path lay. 
Here the children delighted to ramble ; the high banks 



59 

of tlie river were often resorted to for the beautiful 
views they afforded of the opposite side, where stood a 
small stone church, called the Swede's Church, and 
which gave the name to the ford — the Swede's Ford ; 
afterward more known by being the passage of a part 
of the British army. 

" Owing to the progress of the war, and Jersey be- 
ing so much the seat of hostile operations, the college 
at Princeton was vacated. The president, Dr. Wither- 
spoon, was in Congress, and the other officers and stu- 
dents were dispersed. My brother James, among the 
others, had to return home. He procured a horse, and 
took what was supposed the safest road to avoid the 
enemy. Unfortunately, he fell in with a party of ma- 
rauders, who seized him and inquired his name. When 
he told them, they immediately pronounced him a rebel, 
and the son of a rebel ; though, from his youthful ap- 
pearance, it was evident he had never borne arms. But 
this availed nothing. They pinioned his arms and 
brought him to Philadelphia, and committed him to 
prison, where a fearful doom awaited bim. As soon as 
the sad news was brought to Plymouth, my mother de- 
termined to go immediately to the city. My father was 
at Lancaster, where the Assembly was sitting, and she 
had no one to assist her ; but her maternal love gave 
her energy, I do not recollect hearing through whose 



60 

influence she obtained a safe-conduct ; but sbe hastened 
forward and made application to the commanding offi- 
cer. For some days she suffered a most anxious sus- 
pense. She met unlooked-for kindness from a Quaker 
lad}^ — Grace Hastings — which she mentioned with 
gratitude. It was a Christian act for a Tory to aid a 
Whig in those troublous times. Application was made 
to our commander-in-chief, and arrangements were made 
for the release of her beloved son, and she returned 
home to her interesting charge. It was a tedious space 
till he was actually released. His return occasioned a 
gleam of joy in the midst of those gloomy days. Sev- 
eral years afterward he pointed out to me the place 
where he stood : it was a gate by the road-side, wait- 
ing to hear his doom ; a halter was round his neck, and 
the intelligence had not come whether life or death was 
the sentence. The messenger appeared in the distance. 
The moment was awful. But in a few minutes he was 
set at liberty, and he joyfully set off for his home. 

" On another occasion, my mother was placed in 
very trying and agitating circumstances. My father 
was absent, attending to his official duties at Lancaster, 
where the Assembly met as a place of safety removed 
from the seat of war, and she had a large family to pro- 
vide for. A division of the British army was moving 
to Philadelphia by the way of the Swede's Ford ; tlie 



61 

road to l>e passed was the one on which our house stood. 
Thi^ alarm caiLsed great consternation, as snch a course 
was not expected, and no preparation was made for 
escape. An invitation was sent from a friend, who lived 
at Potts Grove, for her to brin^ her family there. Mr. 
Andrew Caldwell was the name of this Mnd friend, of 
whom I retain a gratefol recollection. My mother en- 
gaged a few wagons to convey the fomitare to places of 
safety, but c-ould not on such short notice dispose of all 
the family stores. They had to be left for the plunder 
of the soldiery. She took her small children with her, 
and moumfally departed from her home, not knowing 
what should Irefall their a«ylum. As she went in the 
momincr, in the evenins" the enemy arrived and took 
possession of the house which was so commodiously 
situate^i, Thev found much that was orratifvincr, and 
some things which proved amusing in the way of de- 
struction. The library was a thing which coidd do 
them no orood ; they found many religious books, and 
c-»:.ncluded they belonged to some Presbyterian pardon, 
and of course a rebel. They made a pile of them, and 
amused themselves in shooting at theui in all directions, 
the fragments and some few volumes remaining scattered 
over the court-yard. Another thing excited their ire- 
It was the likenesses of our distinguished men. They 
tore them down, and to iacreaae their fury saw behind 



62 

them with their faces turned to the wall, some of the 
royal family, and of course the American heroes had to 
share the fate of the Presbyterian divine. The wine 
was a great prize, and proved the means of saving the 
house, which was doomed to destruction. But the offi- 
cer, in gratitude for this unlooked-for luxury, instead 
of ordering the house to be burnt, wrote a very polite 
note to my father, thanking him for his entertainment. 

" It was reported that the house was burnt and 
every thing destroyed. This gave occasion to a friend, 
William Bell, to give evidence of his great affection 
and gratitude to my father. As soon as he heard this 
sad report, he made an offer to divide his property, 
and give half of all he possessed to his friend, saying, 
"I owe all I have to your kindness, for you took me 
into your employ when I had nothing." Such noble 
conduct is worthy of lasting remembrance. The sacri- 
fice, happily, was not requisite. The house remained, 
and the losses were not so great but that they might 
soon be retrieved. 

" A more retired residence was procured for the 
winter, which was rendered very agreeable by the near 
neighborhood of General Reed's family. There had 
long been a very intimate association between the two 
families, whicli continued through life. My father 
said, next to his brother, General Reed was his dearest 



63 

friend. The children participated in this friendly inter- 
course, and memory retains some of the pleasures of 
that early period when we played together. 

"The succeeding summer, I think, the family was 
removed, for greater safety, to the manor-house in 
Maryland. There were still some of the ancient slaves 
remaining in their quarters as it was termed, and my 
father took the kindest care of them in their old age. 
I have some remembrance of them. The old man 
would still go to the tobacco-field, and, sitting on a 
three-legged stool, w^ould diligently look for the worms 
I and destroy them. He called my father by the ac- 
customed name of Jolmy. 'Massa Johny, oh, I car- 
ried him many a day in my arms.' Old Sarah was 
his wife. All I recollect of her was a large wen on 
her arm, so that she could do little to help herself. 
But she was kindly cared for till her removal from 
earthly bondage. 

" The succeeding winter was passed in Philadelphia. 
I have scarcely any recollection of that period. But 
in the spring we all returned to Plymouth, which was 
now repaired and furnished anew. My father en- 
gaged a teacher, and had a little cottage on the oppo- 
site side of the road fitted for a school-room. He ad- 
mitted a few of the neighbors to enjoy this privilege 
with his family. It was a great matter in those days 



64 

of desolation to have such a resource. It was a subject 
of great delight to me to have a little friend with me, 
and many a pleasant ramble we had together through 
the woods, and down on the banks of the beautiful 
Schuylkill. Her father was a physician, and lived 
about a mile off; but, accompanied by a brother, she 
used to attend punctually. I had a brother also, and 
it was our practice to go generally half-way home 
with them, to a little brook which crossed the road. 
On a small knoll was a large hawthorn-bush, under 
which we often sat down to rest or amuse ourselves. 
The brook was so shallow that it was safely waded, or 
else we stepped along the rails of the fences. The 
boys generally preferred the first method, and we the 
latter. Many years after, when I revisited the scenes, 
all the features of the place were altered. A fine 
broad stone bridge was erected over this little brook — 
the bank, our favorite seat, was levelled down, and no 
trace remained of the thorn-bush. I could not hail the 
improvements with the same feelings as those simple 
objects impressed on my childhood's memory. I was 
often allowed to spend days with my friend Kachel 
Shannon, and the places of our resort are still fresh in 
my recollection. Her father. Dr. Shannon, had a mill 
on the Schuylkill, which, in our holiday-time, we often 
visited. About the middle of the stream, which spread 



65 

out widely just at this place, was a small island stud- 
ded witli fine, spreading trees. To gain tLat island, as 
a play-ground, was tlie object of our earnest desire. 
There was a small boat belonging to tlie mill, and 
one day we persuaded tlie mill-boy to paddle us over. 
The current was too strong for our little boy, and, in- 
stead of reaching the island, as enticing as Calypso's, 
^ve were carried down in our frail bark to the mill- 
race ! Happily the miller was near, and flew to our 
rescue, or in a few- moments we should have been 
crushed under the water-wheel. So graciously did 
Providence preserve us from the effects of our folly, 
I believe this adventure settled our minds about visit- 
ing the island. 

" With this friend I kept up a very kind intimacy. 
I attended her marriage as her bridesmaid, the first 
time I sustained that oflfice. She was married to a son 
of General St. Clair, and continued to live with her 
parents. I never saw her but once after our removal 
to New Jersey. 

" In the autumn we left our favorite retreat, and 
went to pass the winter in Philadelphia. My father 
took a large house in Water Street, not far from my 
grandfather's. At that time this street, now alto- 
gether one of business, \7as occupied by many of the 
most respectable families, and Third Street was 



66 

thouglit to be quite higli up. Tlie growth of tlie city 
Las been very great since tbose early days. My 
motlqer's liealth was very declining. Some recollec- 
tion of lier sick-room still abides, and bas been ever 
since a painful thought — a gentle reproof that I pre- 
ferred sliding on the ice to sitting by my sick mamma ! 
I always have felt it as the sin of my childhood. 

" I remember also, some time this winter, that I was 
invited to a tea-party at President Reed's, and great 
preparations were made about my dress. Goods of 
every kind were scarce and high, as commerce had not 
yet revived. Therefore, a dress of my mother was to be 
made up for me. It was an India muslin, which was an 
article rare and much admired. A pair of red shoes 
also were procured. Our coachman, Lancaster, one of 
the Maryland servants, a fine, tall man, carried me on 
his shoulder, his strong arm surrounding my limbs. I 
felt as safe there as if seated in a carriage. This was 
the first party I was ever at, and it appeared very gay 
and beautiful to me, especially seeing the young ladies 
dancing. Miss Patty, the eldest daughter, was my 
friend, and I was much attached to her. The intimacy 
with this family has marked every period of my life. 
Our parents were attached by mutual esteem, and 
friendship descended to their children. Alas, the last 
link is broken ! * All who live long, must outlive 



67 

those they love and honor.' This I find by my own 
experience. I have survived all my early friends. 

" The event which most materially affected my earth- 
ly welfare took place at this period. That tender parent, 
who would have been the guide of my youth, in whom 
the confidence of my heart might have reposed, was by 
the inevitable will of the divine Disposer of all events 
removed from her sacred charge ! There is no loss to 
a daughter so momentous as that of an affectionate 
and discreet mother endued with piety. I remember 
still, at this late day, standing at her knee and repeat- 
ing one of Watts's hymns — 

' How glorious is our lieavenly King,' etc., 

and some of the impressions it made on my mind, and I 
seem never to have lost the remembrance of her sweet 
and placid countenance as she repeated it to me. 

" But the hour was come, when I was taken into 
her room and kneeled down at the foot of the bed to 
take my last look of that face now shaded with the 
paleness of death. A servant of my grandfather took 
me over to his house, to sob out my sorrow on her 
lap. 

"The grief of childhood soon passes away, yet I 
recall sad feelings long after the event took place, 
especially on oiir return to Plymouth. I missed her in 



68 

her accustomed corner, and there was an indescribable 
desolateness everywhere. When my brothers came 
in, they seemed to cheer my spirits ; but I am sure I 
inly mourned her loss. Neither was I satisfied with 
the dress that I had to wear. It was my resolve that, 
if I lived to be a woman, I would then get deep mourn- 
ing. It was a childish thought, yet it gratifies me that 
this mark of love was meditated at that early age." 

Miss Bayard received the best education the coun- 
try afforded at that early day, completing her study of 
the languages and music from private teachers in New 
York, while an inmate of the household of her kinsman, 
the Rev. John Rodgers, D. D., pastor of the Wall 
Street Presbyterian Church. She was an apt scholar, 
possessing unusual powers of mind, a quick perception, 
fine imagination, and a very retentive memory. That 
she was an affectionate daughter I learn from the letters 
of Colonel Bayard. Writing to her at New Rochelle, 
where she was on a visit to the family of Lewis Pintard, 
he says : " I received your very affectionate and dutiful 
letter of January 1st, a day or two ago, since which I 
wrote to you by Mr. Patterson.' I would not wish, my 
dear child, to call you home, if your being with Miss 
Pintard will contribute to her and your happiness, al- 

' Judge Patterson, of the United States Supreme Court. 



69 

tlioiigli I should feel liappy to have you with us again. 
You have ever been a. most dutiful, affectionate child, 
and, as such, I have the tenderest affection for you, and 
it is my wish to do every thing in my power to make 
you happy and comfortable, as well as my other dear 
children." Her father having been a prominent actor 
in the Revolution, and a firm pillar of the Church, his 
house was the resort of many men of distinction, both 
in the State and Church. The society Miss Bayard 
thus met, contributed greatly to enlarge her views of 
the leading interests of the country, and brought her 
into familiar intercourse with the prominent actors in 
the early history of the republic. In 1789, her father 
removed from Philadelphia to New Brunswick, where 
Miss Bayard, after being greatly admired, and receiv- 
ing many offers, accepted the handsome young lawyer, 
Andrew Kiikpatrick, whose talents and character ren- 
dered him " the best match in New Jersey." A more 
elegant couple, as they appeared soon after their mar- 
riage, at one of Mrs. Washington's receptions in Phil- 
adelphia, could not be seen in the land. 

Mrs. Kirkpatrick was deeply interested in the 
Presbyterian Church, of which she was for sixty years 
a member, but without bigotry, for she loved all whose 
lives corresponded with the spirit of Christianity ; was 
distinguished for her interest in every thing that per- 



70 

tained to the welfare of the countiy and the State in 
which she lived, and was well known for her charities, 
being " rich in good works." She was the founder of 
the Dorcas Society of New Brunswick, for the relief 
of the indigent sick, and poor widows, and, from the 
time of its formation, till her death — a period of two- 
score years — she was its first directress. Mrs. Kirk- 
patrick was often requested to publish her admirably- 
written addresses which she read to the society at 
it annual meetings, but could not be prevailed upon 
to do so. She was a fond and faithful wife, and 
a loving and affectionate mother. After her death 
numberless mementos were found among her papers 
and journals, exhibiting her deep affection for her 
dearly-loved daughter Elizabeth, and her honored hus- 
band who preceded her to the silent land. 

She was graceful in person, tall in stature, and dig- 
nified and commanding in appearance, with a counte- 
nance grave and intelligent, yet cheerful and benevo- 
lent, justifying the old saying that " virtue itself has 
greater charms, and wins greater respect, when coming 
from a handsome, well-framed body." Mrs. Kirkpat- 
rick was, in short, a Christian lady, alike beautiful in 
mind and person, and one whose equal, for personal 
dignity and moral worth, is rarely seen. 

" She bore a mind tliat Envy could not but call fair." 



71 

Her death, thougli on account of her advanced age ex- 
pected, was sudden. It was on Sunday morning, Feb- 
ruary 16, 1851, in her daughter's house at New Bruns- 
Avick, after she had risen and attended to her usual devo- 
tions, that she was struck with her mortal illness; and, 
after languishing for nineteen hours in the full possession 
of her mental faculties, she gently passed away to her 
Redeemer and her God. Among her latest utterances 
while she reclined on her dying bed, with her children 
around her, were a few stanzas of a favorite hymn ; 

*' Vital spark of lieayenly flame, 
Quit, oh quit this mortal frame ; 
Trembling, hoping, lingering, flying, 
Oh the pain, the bliss of dying ! " 

Her death-bed request, that she should be carried 
past her own loved home, when on the way to the 
tomb, was complied with, and she was laid in her hus- 
band's grave, there to await with him and their chil- 
dren through the long night, " until the daybreak and 
the shadows flee away." The influence of such a wo- 
man cannot be entirely lost, " Being dead she yet speak- 
eth," and a wide circle of friends and kindred, for 
whom this brief memorial has been prepared, cherish 
and keep alive her memory as a household treasure. 
Her son-in-law, the Rev. Dr. How, preached her 



72 

faneral sermon, and tlie following lines were written 
at the time, by her own and her daughter, Mrs. Dr. 
Cogswell's friend, Lydia H. Sigourney : 

Say ye the tie that binds 
The Christian mother and the loving child 
Grows weak by time? 

Look at yon aged saint, 
Who to the verge of fourscore years hath held 
Her earthly pilgrimage with -upward aim, 
Large-minded and benevolent, and filled 
With the Heaven-prompted Charity that weighs 
Actions and motives kindly, and relieves 
Penury and pain. 

Her hour hath come to die — 
Scarce warned — yet girded well, her spirit hears 
The Master's call, admitting no delay, 
And wrapped in lowliness, but strong in faith, 
Enters the world unseen. 

The daughter's eye, 
Long on such guidance and example bent. 
Is dimmed with bursting grief. 

The tree hath fallen, 
Under whose shadow she, with great delight, 
Sate from ber infancy. The fount is stanched 
That ne'er in summer's heat or winter's frost 
Withheld the crystal of its sympathy. 
'Tis meet to mourn. 

'Mid all the cherished props, 
Conjugal and maternal — all the hopes 



73 



That round the blooming children of her heart 

Cling tenderly — a heavy sense of loss 

Broods o'er her joys. The golden chain of prayer 

That bound her new-bom being to God's throne 

Is broken, and its links bestrew the grave. 

'Tis meet that she should mourn. 

Deem not the tie 
That gathered strength with every rolling year 
Is lightly riven asunder, or the pang 
Soon banished when a Christian mother dies. 

10 



74 



DESCENDANTS OF ANDEEW AND JANE 
KIKKPATEICK. 



I. Maey Ann Maegaeet Kiekpatrick, born Sep- 
tember 29, 1793 ; and married, October 18, 1838, the 
Rev. Samuel Blanchard How, D. D., Pastor of the First 
Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, New Brunswick, 
and author of " Slavery not Sinfal." 

II. John Bayaed Kiekpateick, born August 18, 
1795 ; graduated at Rutgers College in 1815 ; was for 
a time connected with the Treasury Department at 
Washington, where he married, July 11, 1843, Mar- 
garet Weaver, daughter of William A. Weaver, of 
Bellavista, Prince William County, Virginia. Died 
February 28, 1864, leaving four children : 

1. Andrew Kirkpatrick, attorney-at-law, graduated 

at Union College in 1863, and married, October 
7, 1869, Alice Chapman Condit, daughter of 
Joel Condit, of Newark, New Jersey. 

2. John Bayard Kirkpatrick, graduated at Rutgers 

College in 1866. 

3. Mary Jane Bayard Kirkpatrick, married, Sep- 

tember 3, 1869, Herman Casper Berg, of New 
Brunswick. 

4. Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick. 



75 

III. Hon. Littleton Kirkpateick, attorney-at-law, 
born October 19, 1797 ; graduated at Princeton College 
in 1815 ; was a member of Congress from his native 
State, New Jersey; married, October 18, 1832, Sophia 
Astley, daughter of Thomas Astley, of Philadelphia ; 
died August 15, 1859. 

IV. Jane Eudoea Kiekpateick, born May 26, 1799 ; 
married December 12, 1837, the Rev. Jonathan Cogs- 
well, D. D., Professor of Ecclesiastical History in the 
East Windsor Theological Seminary, and the author of 
several volumes of sermons ; died March 6, 1864, leav- 
ing two children : 

1. Andrew Kirkpatrick Cogswell, attorney-at-law, 

graduated at Rutgers College in 1859 ; and 
married, September 3, 1867, Mary Van Rensse- 
laer, daughter of John Cull en Van Rensselaer, 
of Cazenovia, N. Y. 

2. Jane Emily Searle Cogswell, married, November 

3, 1869, General James Grant Wilson, of New 
York City. 

V. Elizabeth Saeah Kiekpateick, born January 
5, 1 802 ; died, after a lingering illness, January 13, 1823. 

VI. Chaeles Maetel Kiekpateick, born March 20, 
1810; died September 29, 1810. 



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